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Original poster

Colleague's fluffy language!

117 replies

Mk9821 · 11/01/2026 21:11

Just received an out of office reply to an email sent to my colleague.
"currently at this present time I'm not at work abd not going to be back in the office till xxx".
She never gets straight to the point, why to some people use overly fluffy and round the houses ways of saying something that can be summarised in a few words?

OP posts:
Catza · 12/01/2026 19:27

Bowies · 12/01/2026 17:59

They may not know their return date depending on the reason eg they are unwell

Show quote history

They are on holiday

BitOutOfPractice · 12/01/2026 19:15

@RandomMess just wanted to thank you for a new word for me. Prolixity. Wonderful!

Donna1001 · 12/01/2026 19:13

At least there is a date for return. Before Christmas, I had to message almost 3,000 employees. The ridiculous out of offices was unbelievable, & these were line managers.

one said, ‘I’m not in, contact Paul’.

I work in an organisation of over 70,000 employees. Paul who?

Needless to say, their email did not get forwarded to anyone else.

mamajong · 12/01/2026 19:00

Get a life! Hardly a big deal is it, someone elses OoO?! Surely you have more important things in your life to focus on!

TheCurious0range · 12/01/2026 18:56

At the opposite end of the spectrum one of my colleagues put her out of office on Friday as she was off for the day. It just said. BACK MONDAY
Capitals, no who to contact, forwarding email etc. Not even her name/footer.
I like her a lot.

Kingscallops · 12/01/2026 18:54

She's really under your skin then.

Andsoitbeganagain · 12/01/2026 18:54

I hear you OP. I try to stop my team doing this but it's an uphill battle. The people who do it tend to be the same ones that insist on enquiring after my health in every email, are still wishing everyone happy new year in every email, use "myself" and "yourself" inappropriately and cannot get sincerely / faithfully the right way round for love nor money.

topcat2014 · 12/01/2026 18:53

Because they are a bit thick

BillieWiper · 12/01/2026 18:51

Yeah that's about double the number of words necessary.

Does she constantly refer to herself as 'myself'?

'At this present time myself and Gary are proceeding to contemplate a range of varied sustenance options. If you would like to be involved in the round table discussion on this subject going forward, please liaise with myself at 1pm for a debrief.'

As opposed to 'Me and Gary are going to get lunch, not sure what yet. If you want anything let me know when I'm going'.

FullLondonEye · 12/01/2026 18:46

People seem to do this when they're trying to sound more intelligent. It doesn't work. See also 'myself'.

LottieMary · 12/01/2026 18:43

HoseGoblin · 11/01/2026 21:19

I get it, it's the difference between "I'm out of office until x anything urgent can be directed to x" and "forsooth verily I will not be available for correspondence until the waxing gibbous of the tenth day of middletide, your questions, queries and lamentations will be received and resolved joyously by my virtuous desk partner until such time as I am available again."

I had to consciously make my everyday correspondence less purple when I realised how annoying it is lmao, I was doing it because I didn't want to come across blunt and rude with single sentence responses to things.

Thanks for my new ooo!!

Lovelyindevon · 12/01/2026 18:41

I didn’t know you worked with my sister!

Nevermind17 · 12/01/2026 18:11

I’d reply and ask “Are you off right now? Today? Currently? Presently? Right this minute?” just to be certain.

SliceofTosst · 12/01/2026 18:09

Trying to hard with too many words. Surprised she didn't stick 'at this moment in time' in there just to be triple sure you understood.

singthing · 12/01/2026 18:02

I bet she also uses "myself" and "yourself" a lot, doesn't she? Especially on phones calls - "I was just calling yourself to see if you'd see the email from myself..."

Bowies · 12/01/2026 17:59

Catza · 11/01/2026 21:35

It's less annoying than getting OOO which says "I am currently out of office".. Thanks for that, Melanie. Was it too much to ask to stick your return date on there?

They may not know their return date depending on the reason eg they are unwell

Bowies · 12/01/2026 17:56

It’s not that bad. Probably done in a rush. YABU by nitpicking.

LydiaFunnyGums · 11/01/2026 22:58

Does it really matter? You have your way of doing things and she has hers. 🤷‍♀️

Dawnintheageofaquariams · 11/01/2026 21:56

OP is a Lampard.

PassportPanicFuuuck · 11/01/2026 21:54

I wouldn't say that's "fluffy", but it's a ridiculously verbose and tautological way of saying, "I will be out of the office until [date]."

IWantToHibernate · 11/01/2026 21:48

I used to work at a company that required us to write like this to clients. We would get pulled up if we wrote anything they deemed too ‘direct’ or ‘forceful’. In fact, for the first month they checked out emails before we sent them, to ensure we were using this flowery language. I left (no surprise) but still feel I need to write like this professionally.

Arlanymor · 11/01/2026 21:46

Far more annoying when you get an OOO telling you to email someone else and they are also OOO. My colleague does this regularly and I am the extra OOO!

mattbee · 11/01/2026 21:44

It's Arthur from Cabin Pressure making a passenger announcement.

BellaTheDarkOverlord · 11/01/2026 21:43

Yes it reminds me of having to write an essay and you’re low on word count so fluff it out a bit.

ChocolateCinderToffee · 11/01/2026 21:41

The tautology would annoy me.

A lot of people think that using many long words is classy. It isn't, but it's hard to get through to them on this. If you ever have to write essays under exam conditions, you very quickly dump all the waffle.